Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management First Deer Ever With a Bow!!!

Agreed. I see and respect your viewpoint.

I view it as a tool. As long as it's legal to use, it's fine in my book. In Indiana, you can use a bow during gun season if you want. Not so in Wi.

I look at hunting as a way to put meat in the freezer, and to enjoy being in tune with nature. If I get a big buck, even better. But, since we are only allowed one per year no matter what the tool, I usually end up not shooting one because I'm waiting for one that's bigger than the one that is on the wall. I'll fill the freezer with does.

I started the stick and string thing with a recurve and cedar arrows. 30 Yds was pushing it. I would have used a long bow if I had one that was strong enough, but I didn't.

Ken, funny you should mention the speed thing. It was just discussed on another forum, this was one of the posts there:

If you look at the math of it, sound travels at roughly 1126 fps. Shooting a x-bow at 385fps. I looked all over to find the reaction time of deer, which i found to be .2sec on 4 different websites (not saying that is accurate). If you take the time it takes for the sound to get to the deer and the time the arrow takes to get to the deer you can use the numbers to help you.

at 45 yards (135feet):
--> sound to deer = 1126/135 = 8.341 --> 1/8.341 = .1198 sec
--> arrow to deer = 385/135 = 2.85 --> 1/2.85 = .35 sec or 35 mS
.35-.1198=.2309 sec for deer to react.
if deer can react in .2 sec, then the deer in this example has .03 sec to react to the shot.

at 60 yards (180feet):
--> sound to deer = 1126/180 = 6.255 --> 1/6.255 = .1598 sec
--> arrow to deer = 385/180 = 2.138 --> 1/2.138 = .4677 sec
.4677 - .1598 = .307 sec for deer to react.
if deer can react in .2 sec, then the deer in this example has .107 sec to react to the shot.


This is with all things being perfect. In reality, the numbers here will be somewhat off because your arrow slows slightly in flight.

And really who knows the actual reaction time of deer?

How fast does that x-bow sling 'em?